OH no, not another travel guide! Well you are quite right it’s not!
There are enough guide books around already, and if you tried to see
everything they mention you could be here for months!
First a small hint to help you get around, leave plenty of time for your day out when you are driving,
the distance may not look great, but with hairpin bends and steep hills, at times you will be lucky if
you can travel at more than 20km an hour! The map you get with your hire car gives an indication
of the size of the island, it does not tell you how twisty and narrow some of the roads are, also some
of the place names are not spelt correctly! It is worth €6 or so to go and buy a decent one.
So here are a few suggestion for a day out. Samaria Gorge is the longest in Europe, although the
walk is not difficult, it is a long day out, there are other smaller gorges so why not try one of these
instead. The Imbros gorge can be walked or driven, and there are also minor gorges at Topoliano
and Kourtaliotis with it’s river running out to sea. Before it gets to the sea the river forms a palm tree
surrounded lake and there is a fine sandy beach, which sometimes gets very crowded! While in this
area you can visit the famous Prevelli Monastary. Heading north towards Rethymno you can visit the
village of Georgioupoulis with it cascading springs and running water which is something of a rarity
on Crete!
Lassithi Plateau inland from Villa Ralfa is a high plateau within the mountains, given
over mainly to agriculture, with many small villages. Here you can visit the Dicteon Cave
at Psychro, legendary birthplace of Zeus. Many guide books mention the windmills on the
plateau, for pumping irrigation water, without being too political, I fear that electricity has
superseded wind power on most of the island, as in many high places there remain the ruins
of large stone windmills standing idle like the stumps of old teeth, while the PPC now
builds cold and characterless wind farms to generate power. One can’t help but feel that the
ancient Cretans had the technological edge and with more style than we have today!
While in this area you can take in the Roman ruins around the ‘spring’ villages of Lyttos,
Krassi, and Amariano. When the Romans inhabited the island they used the springs as
their source of water and transported it by aqueducts, fed by gravity. In our more
enlightened times of course, we put it in plastic bottles and transport it by lorry (oops,
there I go again!)
Thrapsano, high in the hills has been ‘the village of pots’ since Roman times. Today the
traditional Cretan ‘pithari’ are still made here, and while these may be a little large to take
home with you there are couple of smaller potteries producing smaller items. One of the old
claypits has now been flooded and serves as a bird sanctuary.
If you are interested in caves then you will find a cave at Scotino nearby, and more at Milatos,
these are of interest because many of them have been found to contain religious artifacts, and
of course in the past have been used as hiding places by Cretan rebels in times of strife.
Agios Nikolaos and Ierapetra so the east and south are worth taking in on a day trip,
and you can make this a circular tour, pausing perhaps at the monument to the Cretan
Massacre with it’s stunning view of the Libyan Sea. Further to the east is Sitia where
your journey takes you on a road perched high above the crystal blue waters of the
Cretan Sea.
